Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth after a suspicious fragment Space debris left them stranded on ChinaOfficials said it was the Tiangong space station.
Chen Dong, Wang Jie and Chen Zhongrui – the crew of China's Shenzhou 20 mission – left the space station in a return capsule and landed in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Friday (November 14), the Chinese state news agency reported. Xinhua reported. The crew spent 204 days in orbit, which is a new record for a Taikonaut (Chinese astronaut) crew.
The trio of taikonauts began their record-breaking stay at the Tiangong (Mandarin for “heavenly palace”) space station in April. They were originally scheduled to return to Earth on November 5, but were forced to extend their stay in space after their original return capsule was struck by an object believed to be space debris just hours before it was due to depart.
Earlier this week, officials from the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said that engineers carried out tests on a reserve capsule to take the stranded taikonauts home. The Shenzhou 20 crew returned in the return capsule of the Shenzhou 21 spacecraft, which carried a replacement crew to the space station.
The Shenzhou 21 spacecraft undocked from the Tiangong space station on Friday at 11:14 am Beijing time (10:14 pm ET on Thursday, November 13). The return capsule carrying the taikonauts then separated from the Shenzhou 21 orbital capsule at 2:49 pm Beijing time (1:49 a.m. ET) before landing on Earth at 4:40 pm Beijing time (3:40 a.m. ET), Xinhua reported.
There is still uncertainty as to what exactly happened to the original return capsule. However, the quantity There is more and more space debris around the Earthand things like rocket boosters and other discarded space travel objects clutter the site and increase the risk of collisions with manned spacecraft.
According to Xinhua, the Shenzhou 20 crew members are doing well after an eventful stay. Their 204 days in orbit may be a record for Chinese crews, but it is far from a record. longest time humans have spent in space. NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams were famous on International Space Station (ISS) for 286 consecutive days between 2024 and 2025 due to problems with Boeing Starlinerwhich returned to Earth without passengers. The astronauts were eventually flown home aboard a SpaceX spacecraft, 272 days after they were scheduled to return to Earth.
However, astronauts often stay on the ISS for a long time, and the astronaut Frank Rubio sets an American record after accidentally spending 371 days there between 2022 and 2023.
Cosmonaut Valery Polyakov holds the world (or off-world) record for most consecutive days spent in space, having worked on the former Russian space station Mir for 437 days between 1994 and 1995.
Prolonged stay in space can have various health effectsbut any changes in the body usually return to normal within six months of returning to Earth. However, researchers still have a lot to learn about how space travel affects human health.
